Saturday, December 31, 2016

Goals for 2017

Hi, y'all! With 2016 almost behind us (thank goodness), it's time to start thinking about yearly goals again.

Setting a yearly goal and then working on a project in the finishing stages at least once a week worked so well for me last year that I want to continue in the same vein this year. So with that in mind, I listed all of my projects and thought about how I wanted to approach getting them done. Eventually, I would like to work on at least one finishing project, one quilting/binding project (as opposed to piecing a quilt), and one of my own designs each week. Once I've done some work on each of those, I'd then work on whatever I felt like. I'd also like to have just a few projects for each type of needlework that I do. Over the next few years, I plan to focus on reducing my UFOs so that I don't feel so overwhelmed by the excessive number that I currently have.

I'm not going to worry about reducing the number of projects that are at the finishing stage or the number of quilts that are at the quilting/binding stage because if I keep working on those for a bit each week I should be able to keep on top of them. I'm also not going to worry about Christmas projects since I only work on those during the month of December and I only have a few anyway. Also, for the sake of brevity, in this post I'm not going to bother with images for each project; I'll just list the project names (I promise to properly credit the designers in future posts).

So, without further ado, here we go:

Swedish Weaving:

I would like to have just one Swedish weaving project. Currently I have the following:

Baby Babbles

Goal already met. Yay!

Blackwork:

For blackwork, I would like to have at most one of my own designs and one project designed by someone else. Currently I have the following:

Da Capo

Goal already met. Yay!

Knitting:

For knitting, I would like to have one summer project and one winter project. Currently I have the following:

ShawlSoft Shoulders

Soft Shoulders is perfect for a winter project. I would prefer to have something knit with cotton or linen for a summer project, but the shawl, which I'm knitting with a laceweight yarn, isn't too heavy so it will do. I'm calling this goal already met. Yay!

Crochet:

For crocheting, I would like to have one summer project, one winter project, and one scrap-eater project. Currently I have the following:

Plum Granny Ripple is a good summer project and the Step Afghan is a good winter project. Granny's Daughter is a scrap afghan consisting of 1 1/2" one-round granny squares crocheted together with a main color. It's a perfect project for using up scraps that are too small to be used in other projects.

For quilts that are in the piecing stage, I would like to have one of my own designs and one project designed by someone else. Currently I have the following:

Hidden StarsOld Mill PondAround the TownSnuggles Quilts Block-of-the-Month (BOTM) (the designer never gave this a name)

Hidden Stars is my own design. That leaves 3 designed by others. Old Mill Pond will take the longest to finish, so in order to meet this goal I plan to finish piecing Around the Town and design a setting (I didn't like the designer's) for the blocks in the Snuggles Quilts BOTM and finish piecing it.

Cross Stitch:

For my cross stitch projects, I would like to have one of my own designs and one project designed by someone else. Currently I have the following:

Now, Mask of Colors 1 (and its companion piece), Fish City, and Noah's Sub are all giant projects that will take me years to finish, so I'm not going to worry about them; I'll just make sure not to start any more giant cross stitch projects.

Bright Feathers is my own design.

That leaves the following projects by other designers that need to be whittled down to just one:

Obviously, I'm not going to be able to finish all of those in just one year. I'll need to spread them out over a few years, starting with the smaller ones so that I feel like I'm making progress.

So finally, after reviewing the above, I've decided to finish (or at least get to the finishing or quilting/binding stage) 6 projects this year. That's 2 months per project, which seems reasonable. I'll do the projects needed to meet my goals plus enough of the cross stitch projects to make a total of 6.

So, my plan for this year is to work on one finishing project, one quilting/binding project, and one of my own designs each week, and then focus on the 6 projects listed above. If I do that, then by the end of the year I should have reduced my UFOs to a reasonable number, except for the cross stitch projects, of course.

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About Me

Hi, I'm Gillian, a.k.a. CelticRose. Welcome to Rainbow Pincushion, a blog about my needlework. I knit, crochet, do blackwork, quilt, cross stitch, and do Swedish weaving. I do everything by hand, including all sewing and quilting. You can also find me on Twitter under @RosCeilteach.